Mournful Weeps the Willow

Or just Weeps the Willow for the moment, due to the grammatically incorrect original title (as noted above).

Those wonderful people at Book-Ends are running a new contest. Today is mystery, tomorrow paranormal romance. Quoting from the Book-Ends blog, here are the genres they will be judging in the next few months:
Mystery (traditional and cozy)
Paranormal Romance/Romance With Fantasy Elements
Erotic Romance
Women’s Fiction
Romantic Suspense
Contemporary Romance
Thriller/Suspense
Historical Romance

Jessica and Kim will be judging the first 100 words of your story (rounded to the last sentence that does not exceed 100 words). Since my first true novel-length story is/was a mystery, I thought I'd enter it. The rewards, other than accolades of our peers, will be a critiqued query letter, synopsis, and the first chapter. So, here are my first 100 words (96 really) of Mournful Weeps the Willow:

Womp-wump, womp-wump, womp-wump. The wipers flapped back and forth like the hortator of a Roman galley pounding out a ramming-speed cadence. The engine raced intermittently, as the driver tried to rock his car out of a muddy rut, but it was useless. The car was not going anywhere. With a turn of the key, he silenced the engine and wipers and stared cataleptically through the front windshield, as lightning snaked its way through the clouds, peeking out here and there with the illusion of a threadbare arc.

How on earth had it ever come to this?

Shaun